The Brothers of Gwynedd (6 page)

  The Lady Senena had sent her steward ahead to deal with the bailiffs of the town, being armed already with a recommendation from John Lestrange, who was sheriff of the county. And we were met at the gate, and conducted to a great house near the church of St. Alkmund (for this town has four parish churches within its walls) where we were to be lodged. There was fair provision for the lady and her children and officers within, and those of her escort and servants who were married were given the best of what remained, while the young men had reasonably good lying in a barn and storehouse in the courtyard. And it was mark of some respect that our party got so much consideration, for Shrewsbury was crowded to the walls. King Henry and his court and officials had been in the town three days, and many of his barons and lords were installed with him in the guest halls of the abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, outside the walls by the English gate. The chief tenants and their knights were quartered in the castle, or wherever they could find room in houses and shops inside the walls, and the main part of the army, a great host, encamped in the fields outside the castle foregate.

  But this numbering, vast though it was, was but the half of the stream that had poured into Shrewsbury. There were plenty of clients eager to enlist King Henry's favour, besides the Lady Senena. All those marcher lords who had lost land to Llewelyn the Great, and had been trying through legal pressures to regain it from his son all these past months, had come running to the royal standard, waiting to pick the bones. Roger of Montalt, the seneschal of Chester, who had been kept out of Mold for many years, Ralph Mortimer, who had trouble with his Welsh neighbours in Kerry, and Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn, who laid claim to most of southern Powys by right of his father, these were the chief litigants. This Griffith ap Gwenwynwyn was a man twenty-seven years old, and had been but an infant when his sire lost all to Llewelyn of Gwynedd. He was married to Hawise, a daughter of the high sheriff, John Lestrange, who had three border counties in his care, and was justiciar of Chester into the bargain, a very powerful ally. The English called this Welsh chief Griffith de la Pole, after the castle of Pool, which was his family's chief seat; and indeed, this young man had been so long among the English that he was more marcher baron than Welsh chief, let alone the influence of his wife, who was a very strong and self-willed lady. But apart from these, there were not a few of the minor Welsh princes here to join the royal standard, some because they felt safer owing fealty to England than to Gwynedd, some with grievances of their own over land, like the lord of Bromfield, some because they upheld the Lord Griffith's right, and had conceived the same hope as had his lady, some in the hope of snatching a crumb or two out of David's ruin for themselves, with or without right. Which was cheering indeed for the Lady Senena, who found herself not without advocates and allies in this foreign town.

  But if the outlook was bright for her, it seemed it was black enough for David, with all this great force arrayed against him, and in this summer when the world was turned upside-down. For scarcely ever was there a year when the rivers sank so low, those waters on which Gwynedd counted for half her defence. There had been no rains since the spring, the sun rose bright every morning, and sank cloudless every night, pools dried up, and swamps became dry plains. And all those supporters of the Lord Griffith whetted their swords and watched the skies with joy, waiting for the order to march.

  The Lady Senena sent a messenger at once to the abbey, to ask for an audience of the king, and his officers appointed her to come on the twelfth day of August. So we had time enough to wait, and to draw up in detail the petition she intended to present, together with her proposals for an alliance which should be of benefit to both parties. This kept her steward and clerk busy for some days, and I was employed to help in preparing fair copies of the clauses, for I had learned to write a good clear hand. I had also to help my mother take care of the two young princes, for now it was part of my mother's own duties to be waiting-maid to the Lady Gladys, so that I came in for much of the work of minding the little boys. And as they were full of curiosity and wonder at this strange and busy town, I was able to go with them sometimes about the streets, gaping at everything as simply as did the children, for it was as new to me as to them. So many fine buildings, such shops and market stalls, and such a bewildering parade of people I had never imagined. Those four noble churches were of stone, the houses mainly of timber, but large and splendid, the streets so full of life that it seemed the whole business of the kingdom had followed the court here, and London must be empty. And all the while this blue, unpitying sky over all, very beautiful, very ominous.

  When the day came, the lady had her daughter, who was growing up very handsome, dressed with great care to adorn her beauty, and the two little boys also made as grand as might be. Rhodri, the elder, was a capricious and uncertain-tempered child, but not ill-looking when he was amiable, and David had always, even then, at five years old, a great sense of occasion, and could light some inward lamp of charm and grace at will, so that he truly shone, and women in especial were drawn to him like moths to flame. I do not know why it was, for I paid him no more attention than I did his brother, but David was much attached to me, and it was because he would have me with him that I was of the party that went before the king.

  We went on foot, for it was not far. Only the Lady Senena and her daughter rode in a litter, for it was not fitting for them to arrive at the king's audience on foot. The road was by a fine, curving street that dropped steeply to the bridge on the English side, where there was a double gate, the first a deep tunnel in the town wall, and after it a tower set upon the bridge itself, of which the last span was a draw-bridge. And beyond the bridge, where a brook ran down into the river, the abbey mills stood, and the wall and gatehouse of the great enclosure loomed bright in the unfailing sunshine, with the square tower of the church over all. We went in procession over the bridge and along the broad road to the gateway, and so to the guest-houses where King Henry kept his court. In the anteroom his chamberlain met us, and went in before us to announce the lady.

  She took the petition, carefully inscribed and rolled and sealed with the Lord Griffith's private seal, which she kept always about her, and marshalled us in order at her back, and so we went into the glow and brilliance of the royal presence, she first and alone, her daughter after her with my mother in attendance, Rhodri led by the steward, and I with David clinging to my hand. And of all of us he was the least awed and the most at ease.

  It was a great room, draped with tapestries and green branches and bright silks, and full of people. The lady halted just within the doorway, and so did we all, and made a deep reverence to the throne. Then, as we moved forward again at the chamberlain's summons, I lifted my eyes, and looked for the first time upon King Henry of England, the third of that name.

  He was seated in a high-backed chair at the dais end of the hall, with a great plump of lords and secretaries and officers on either side of him; a man not above medium tall, rather pale of countenance, with light brown hair and beard very carefully curled, and long, fine, clerkly fingers stretched out along the arms of his chair. He was very splendid in cloth of gold, and much jewelled. I saw the glitter before I saw the man, for he was like a pale candle in a heavy golden sconce, and yet he had some attraction about him, too, once I could see past the shell. I suppose he was then about thirty-four years old, and had been king from a child, among courtiers and barons old, experienced, greedy, and cleverer than he, and yet many of them were gone down into disaster, and he was left ever hopeful among the new, who might well prove as ruinous as the old, but also as transient. He had a kind of innocent shrewdness, light and durable. I never knew if it was real or spurious, but it made for survival. He had, as it turned out, other qualities, too, that taught him how to shed others and save himself, as slender trees give with the wind. But that was not in his face, it remained to be learned in hard lessons by those less pliable. That day he smiled on us with great gentleness and grace, and was all comfort and serenity. The only thing that caused me to tremble was a little thing of the body, that he could not help. He had one eyelid that hung a little heavier than the other, drooping over the mild brownness of his eye. It gave me a strange shock of distrust, as though one half of him willed to be blind to what the other half did, and would take no responsibility for it hereafter. But that was an unjust fancy, and I forgot it soon.

  He was gracious, he leaned forward and stretched out a hand to the Lady Senena, and she sank to her knees before him, and took it upon her own hand, and kissed it. And that she knew how to do without losing one inch of her stature or one grain of her grandeur, as plain as she was, and the mother of five children, in this court full of the young and beautiful. He would have lifted her at once, but she resisted, retaining his hand in hers. She lifted the roll of her petition, and held it up to him. And whatsoever I have been, and however shaken between conflicting loyalties, I was wholly her man then. And the child clinging to my hand stood the taller with pride, and glowed the more brightly.

  "My liege lord," said the Lady Senena, "I pray your Grace receive and consider the plea of a wife deprived of her lord by his unjust imprisonment and more disgraceful disinheritance, wholly against law. I commit myself and my children to your Grace's charge, as sureties for my lord's and my good faith and fealty to your Grace. And I ask you for the justice denied elsewhere."

  As he took the roll from her, and as expertly had it removed from his hand by a clerk almost before he touched it, he said: "Madam, we have heard and commiserated your plight, and are aware of your grievances. You are in safety here, and most welcome to us. You shall be heard without hindrance hereafter." For there would be no bargaining here, this was a time for measuring and thinking, before the fine script I had put into those clauses came to be examined by older, colder eyes than mine. But he raised her very gallantly, and sat her at his knee on a gilded stool they placed for her. And she, though I swear she had never played such a part before, played it now with so large a spirit that in truth for the first time I loved her. She folded her hands in her gown like a saint, and only by the motion of her head beckoned us forward one by one.

  "I present to your Grace my daughter Gladys…"

  The girl bent her lissome knees and slender neck, very dark and bright in every colouring and movement, and kissed the king's hand, and lifted her long lashes and looked into his face. It was curiosity and not boldness, but I saw him startle, attracted and amused. The young one saw nothing but a man's fair face smiling at her, and smiled in response, marvellously. She hung between woman and child then, the child having the upper hand. And truly she was very comely, more than she knew.

  "My son Rhodri. Your Grace is advised already that my eldest son, Owen, is prisoner with his father, in defiance of all honour."

  "I do know it," said the king. "Child, you are welcome." Not a word of Llewelyn, the second son. He could not advance her cause here, he was put out of mind, as though he no longer lived.

  "My youngest son, David."

  I loosed his hand, and gave him a gentle push towards the throne, but he did not need it, he knew all that was required of him, and went his own God-given step beyond. He danced, there is no other word, to the step of the throne, and laid his flower of a mouth to the king's hand. He looked up and smiled. I heard all the women there—they were not many, but they were noble and of great influence—breathe out a sound like something between the sighing of the sea and the cooing of doves, for he was indeed a most beautiful and winning child. And the king, amused and charmed, lifted and handed him gently to his mother, and he stood by her unabashed and looked all round him, smiling, aware of approval. I drew back very quietly into the shadows, for I was not needed any more, not until he remembered and wanted me, and that he would not do while his interest was held. He had never been happier, he knew every eye was on him, and every lip smiled on him, even the king's. For Henry left a finger in his clasped hand, and withdrew it only when the hand relaxed of itself, and let the royal prisoner go.

  They say he was a fond, indulgent father to his own children, though apt to tire of their company if they were with him long, and to grow petulant if they plagued him. His son and heir was then just past his second birthday, and the queen had a second babe in arms, but these were all left behind in the south, and I suppose it was pleasant to him to play gently for some minutes with a pretty child of whose company he could be rid whenever it grew irksome. For in that audience he spoke as often to the boy as to his mother, and got his answers just as readily. He asked after his adventures on this great journey, and David chattered freely about the ride, and about the wonders he had seen in Shrewsbury. And when he was asked what he would be and do when he was grown, he said boldly that he would be one of the king's knights. His mother gave him a swift, narrow look then, as doubtful as I if that was said in innocence, for clever children, even at five years old, know very well what will please. But since it did give pleasure she said no word of her qualms, then or afterwards. There is no harm in accepting aid where you find it.

  So this open audience went very well, and gave promise for the closed conference which was appointed to follow the next day, and the Lady Senena made her withdrawing reverence and led her procession back to its lodging reasonably well content.